My World Just Got Rocked, And Not In A Good Way!

Life can take the most interesting turns, can't it? Take me for example... All my life I've known that I was illegitimate, and that my father saw me once when I was a couple of months old. When he saw me, he asked "How do I know she's mine?" So, I grew up without a father, though with quite a few wannabe stand-ins. Amazingly enough, I turned out OK, pretty good in fact. (I'm sure you'll read more about that later, in another post.)

When I turned 30, I consciously decided that I wanted to track my father down and meet him. I wanted to find out health information, learn about that side of my family, personality traits, heritage, etc. And a small part of me - the little girl, I guess - wanted to show him that I'm a pretty amazing person and look what he missed out on.

So, here we are, 20 years later and I just turned 50 a couple of months ago. Big birthday, yes, but surprisingly no drama over turning 50. Weird! Anyway, during the last 20 years, I found out very little about my father. I knew his name and his age, which turns out to be incorrect. No birth date, no social security number, couldn't find him in the state I was born in, etc. My great-aunt - who was the keeper of the family history - knew that he'd gotten another young girl pregnant while my Mom was pregnant with me, and her daddy said "You will, by God, marry my daughter!" I guess it was truly a shotgun wedding. So, I knew the last name of the girl he got pregnant, and over the years I realized that I had a half-sibling out there, maybe more than one.

About 6 weeks ago, my Mom tells me she's signed up for Classmates.com and she was very excited - she had already received e-mails from several kids she went to school with, her second grade boyfriend, and from a gal who was a couple of years ahead of her in school who had the same last name I'd heard from my great-aunt. As soon as I heard it, I asked if she was related to this girl who'd had a baby with my father. My Mom said it was, and I asked her if she could put me in touch with her because it was the best lead I'd had with a chance of making the right connections. I let a couple of weeks go by and then I asked my Mom if she'd made any progress and she said she was working on it. She knew that I had a half-sister, that my father and the girl he married were divorced, and that my half-sister saw my father a couple of times a year. So I let a couple more weeks go by and my Mom calls and gives me a phone number and says that's the number to my half-sister.

I get on the computer and check out the area code and the number's in Oklahoma. Hmmm... It's only about 10:15 p.m. there, that's not too late to call a perfect stranger, right? What the heck! I decided I'd been waiting a long time for a lead like this and to just call her, so I did. Very surreal experience, let me tell you.

Hello! My name is Becky and I'm pretty sure that we're half-sisters and we share the same father. How's that for an opening line? I thought it was pretty good, given the amount of time I had to think it up. In all the years I've thought about finding my father, I never once gave any thought to what exactly I would say. I haven't pictured how a meeting would go, nothing.

The good news is that my half-sister and I have several interesting things in common and several shared experiences, although we've lived very different lives. And I have three more half-sisters and a half-brother. And a whole bunch of cousins. Incredible! I really love the idea that I have a lot more family out there than I thought.

My half-sister told me she'd asked her father about my Mom, and he said he didn't remember her. So, I gave her my Mom's maiden name as well as the names of the two friends they ran around with. In the meantime, my half-sister gets a call from her brother that their dad isn't very happy with her, and she's meddling in things that aren't her business. She calls her dad and apologizes, and said she doesn't know what she did, but she's sorry for it. He tells her that all the things she's been asking him happened before her time and don't have anything to do with her. She feels like if we are half-sisters, it does have to do with her. And so do I!

Now here's where things start to get sticky... Her father says he does remember my Mom, that they never dated but they were both at a party at someones house, and that's where they hooked up. Two weeks later my Mom tells him she's pregnant. He says back in those days you couldn't find out if you were pregnant within a few days like you can now. He says I was born 6 months later and he was shown a picture of me. He also says he was sent a letter, maybe from my grandmother, or the state, whatever, claiming he was the father and asking for child support. He says he got an attorney, went over the chain of events with him, and the attorney wrote a letter back and said "That's the last we'll be hearing from them" and that was the end of the story as far as my father was concerned.

So, my half-sister calls me and tells me these things, although she was hesitant to do it. I told her whatever it was, she just needed to say it and get it out. I have to say, that's when my world started to rock. It wasn't the idea of finally finding my father at the age of 50 that did it, though. It was the fact that after I've spent my whole life accepting that he's my father but obviously didn't want to be a part of my life, he's saying he ISN'T my father. I never even imagined or thought that would be a possibility. Naive of me? Sure, when I think about it now. How come that never crossed my mind?

Now I'm starting to question my belief in what I've been told. I remember my mother telling me a couple of times during my junior high school years that for the first 7 months she was pregnant, she had a period. She also said that her first couple of pregnancy tests with the doctor came back negative. So, there's no way she could have known for sure she was pregnant after 2 weeks. And no way was I an early baby - I weighed 9 lbs, 6 oz. and in 1960 that was a pretty healthy baby! Do I go to my Mom and question her about all this? No, I don't. I don't even think about doing that. Why??? It took a little bit, but I finally realized I don't trust my Mom to tell me the truth about this. Which brings up the question of why I don't trust my Mom, period. And my world rocks a little more.

My half-sister and I decided to get DNA testing done, and we're using one of the top DNA testing facilities in the US to do it, to the tune of $675. I'm paying the money because at this point in my life, I need to KNOW if she's my half-sister or not. If he's my father or not. If I have more half-siblings or not. If I have more cousins or not. Half-sibling DNA testing is not absolute, but it can tell you if you're more likely or less likely to be related, and a percentage of how likely or unlikely it is that we share the same father. No legal documents that would stand up in court, so even if the test says that yes, we are half-sisters and we share the same father, he can still deny it. But, if the DNA test says we are not half-sisters and we don't share the same father, then the next chapter in this story could get ugly. We should know the results in the next couple of weeks, and there's nothing we can do until then but wait.

In the meantime, I need to call my half-sister and see how her life is going. She just got a new job and leased a pretty new semi-truck, so she's probably out on the road somewhere. I think we could become friends over time, and I'd like to nurture that relationship, even though it has the potential to be something that becomes a part of something hurtful if this doesn't go well. I will risk it, though, because I think it's worth it.

I'm sure there will be a few more installments to this story, but we'll have to wait for them to transpire. Until then, I will just keep living my life to the best of my ability, just like I always do.